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A Dose of Stupid v.57

It happens every day. In fact, it is pretty hard to avoid it. There are some things that can only be understood with a slap on the forehead. Things so mind-boggling that one wonders how humans managed to evolve thumbs while being this mentally inept. Case in point:

I am sure you can guess where this is going, but have a look anyway. From the blog post:

Here’s the deal: Straight cis men do get raped. Straight cis men do get abused. Straight cis men do suffer lots of problems because of weird patriarchal notions of masculinity. You’d be hard pressed to find a feminist that disagrees with those ideas.

Of course I would not. After all, that trite is the typical feminist doctrine. The reality is that men suffer sexual violence because of the actions of other men and women. No “patriarchal notions of masculinity” causes that anymore than Catholicism makes priests molest boys. Getting back to the blog post:

But here’s the thing: it can’t and shouldn’t dominate the conversation when women or trans men or LGBTQ folks talk about the type of oppression that THEY face. And it does! All the time, and in ways that are totally irrelevant.

Really? Curious how the author did not point out an actual example of sexual violence against males “dominating” the conversation. As I think about it, I cannot recall a single instance in which sexual violence against males has been the explicit focus of a feminist discussion. Every time feminists mention male survivors, they quickly note that “men are rarely victims” or that “women have it worse” or, as they did with the recent Penn State scandal, ignore male survivors altogether to attack men as a group.

The author tries to justify this nonsense with:

When you read a post where a woman describes her rape trauma, and someone comes in and says “Well, men get raped too, what about the men?”, they’re not saying “We’re all potential victims of sexual assault, look at how awful this is, let’s examine it as one entity called “human” that is opposed to this type of behavior in all of its forms.” What they ARE saying is “STFU, woman. This isn’t just a woman problem, so you’re not allowed to talk about it in any terms that acknowledge your womaness, or gender as a factor at all. We don’t care that rape statistics show that women are much, much, more likely to be raped than straight cis men. We certainly don’t care that people with disabilities and trans people face even more severely heightened odds of being raped. We don’t care. Straight cis men get raped too. Therefore this is a non-story and you really shouldn’t be talking about it. Especially not in any context that we don’t agree with or approve of. Men get raped too, so your story is irrelevant.”

Right… Asking people to stop painting sexual violence as something that only happens to women in akin to telling women to shut the fuck up? What does mean then when feminists tell male survivors ” rape statistics show that women are much, much, more likely to be raped than […] men”? Is that not a big shut the fuck up to men?

Oh, I forgot. It is okay for feminists to tell men to shut the fuck up because what happens to men is “a non-story [we] really shouldn’t be talking about it. Especially not in any context that we don’t agree with or approve of.”

Coincidentally, the author cannot claim that anyone mentioning male victimization denies female victimization when their argument is that men get raped too. The word ‘too’ means ‘as well as’, as in “there are female as well as male victims of rape.” No one actually denied that women were victims or attempted to silence them. They simply wanted to stop the sexist framing of rape as something only men do to only women.

The author continues:

That’s why “But what about the menz?” is a meme in feminist circles. It’s because we see that idea ALL THE GODDAMN TIME.

No, the reason for the “what about teh menz” meme is because feminists as a group do not want to discuss sexual violence against males because it does not fit their preconceived, misandrist agenda. The rape of males is an inconvenient truth for feminists, and feminists use the “what about teh menz” meme in an ironic effort to shut male survivors up. Some of the responses to my article on The Good Men Project Magazine provide good examples of that.

What makes the situation so hypocritical is that feminists claim to care about all rape victims, yet whenever someone mentions male victims, feminist toss out the “what about teh menz” retort. Worse, feminists blame men for their own abuse. Whatever bad things that happen to men are men’s fault (via “the patriarchy”), and however feminists respond to men talking about sexual violence against men, even male survivors, is men’s fault:

It’s a reminder that if we make the conversation about us and our own experiences, and we don’t go out of our way to acknowledge those straight, cis white guys… well, clearly it’s because WE are excluding THEM, and it has nothing to do with their inability to identify with us. Because they’re the default.

If that little bit of stupid did not rattle your brain, this will:

So you can’t talk about human experience in female terms and have it not be automatically exclusionary to the guys that you are not talking about.

By definition, talking about the human experience in female terms does automatically exclude the people you are not talking about, i.e. men. But let us set that aside and just look at the statement at face value. First, the author states that she only wants to talk about the female experience, and implies that sexual violence is exclusive to the female experience. In other words, she basically states men cannot be raped.

Secondly, where are the scores of people talking about sexual violence against men? I know feminists think it happens all the time, but as speaking a male survivor, I can say it rarely occurs, especially in feminist circles.

Look, if feminists do not want to talk about male victimization, fine. To be honest, no one is really asking them to. Whenever someone brings up male survivors in a feminist space, they are not doing it because they think feminists will care. Rather, they are doing it to challenge the sexist framing feminists created around this issue.

Yet ultimately it seems the author is simply peeved about being “interrupted”:

And as a feminist, let me say this: Guys, I understand that bad things happen to you. I understand that you experience rape, harassment, problems related to sexuality and your masculinity. I get that.

Let me clarify something for you: as a feminist you do not understand anything about what happens to men.You do not understand, or care, that boys and men experience rape, harassment, problems related to sexuality or their masculinity. You do not get it and you never will because your views are too bigoted and narcissistic to allow for that kind of basic compassion, as you so eloquently illustrate:

When I talk about me? It’s not because I’m refusing to talk about you. You’re allowed in. Share your stories, but stop acting like there’s something wrong with me if I don’t talk about yours every single time I talk about mine.

But male survivors should act like there is nothing wrong with feminists expecting them to talk about women’s experiences every single time those men talk about their experiences?

This is the kind of sexist, bigoted trite that male survivors put up with constantly. And this crap does not come from the average person, but from the people who claim to support all rape victims. Could you see any feminist writing that condescending “yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up” crap to female victims? Or what about this:

Tell us what happened to you and how it made you feel and why you feel that way. Sit down at the proverbial table with us, have a drink, and tell us what makes you sad about the world.

But don’t you dare fucking interrupt me while you do it. This is a conversation, and in a polite conversation you have to listen and wait for your turn.

In other words: male victims, shut the fuck up.

That kind of misandrist, bigoted, rape apologist stupidity is precisely why people have such a low opinion of feminists.

“But don’t you dare fucking interrupt me while you do it. This is a conversation, and in a polite conversation you have to listen and wait for your turn.
In other words: male victims, shut the fuck up.”

Simple answer, simple remedy. These feminists cannot be part of the conversation around rape of males, and obviousy are never going to be any part of the solution. They are victimizers rather than allies. Their insistence on clinging to primary victim status prevents them from being anything else.

“”But don’t you dare fucking interrupt me while you do it. ”

Get over yourself. No one is interrupting you because you’re not in the conversation n ayway – you have no part in it. It’s not your conversation. You make that very clear.

From the post:
Share your stories, but stop acting like there’s something wrong with me if I don’t talk about yours every single time I talk about mine.

From the sidebar on her site:
If I ever write something in non-inclusive language, I want to be called on it, so I can learn from it.

Yeah, except when you intentionally don’t include men. Thanks. Good to know where you stand. Sad, the minimization of certain incorrect groups. What’s even worse, is not too many people are surprised by it.

Just to play Devil’s Advocate, I think she means people coming in to spaces of support for female victims and declaring that men get raped too.

I understand it in terms of boundaries with certain subjects.

However, that doesn’t stop certain feminists or pro-feminists, when commenting on the subject of male survivors of female abuse, from shifting the issue back on to women having it worse and putting the onus on those survivors to change the male-dominated climate since they’re “Collatoral Damage”.

The same thing happened with me in the commentary section of the article I posted at The Good Men Project. There are always those who just can’t resist.

So the author complains about men hijacking the conversation. Well, some feminists are prone to the same thing in spaces for male survivors.

At this point I think virtually everything feminists typically say about advocates for men’s issues is pure projection. The claims that people who talk about male victims are trying to silence female victims, that discussions of women’s problems are forever being hijacked to talk about the menz by dastardly misogynists who selfishly and/or maliciously shoehorn them into discussions where they are not being discussed, that men’s advocates are apologists for rapists and wifebeaters, or keep bringing up male victims because they hate women and want a rhetorical weapon to attack them with, or treat concern for victims as a “zero-sum game,” all the talk of “entitlement”- I can’t, off the top of my head, think of ANYTHING in the standard feminist rhetorical arsenal that doesn’t describe modern feminism far better than the people they direct it at.

I think a big part of the feminist perception that discussions of female victims are being commandeered by people who insist on cramming male victims into discussions that aren’t about them comes from the fact that feminists so frequently reference male victims without it occurring to them that they’ve done so because the existence of male victims or female perptrators of rape, abuse, etc. just isn’t part of their view of the world, even if they acknowledge the existence of such people when directly confronted about it.

If you say that men benefit from rape or rape culture, or can’t understand what it’s like to fear it, or that society would care about rape if it were a problem men had, or that rape is something men can “stop” or have some sort of collecvtive responsibility for, or if you describe rape in general as something “men” do to “women,” or make the sort of asinine statements feminists sometimes make about how well male survivors are supposedly treated, or claim that sexual violence committed by women or against men is irrelevant or a freakishly rare occurrence, you’ve turned male victims into part of what’s being discussed by attacking them or saying they don’t exist..At that point, “men can be raped/abused too” is an entirely relevant contribution to the conversation, just as it would be perfectly relevant to bring up harms suffered by females if I were explaining my belief that the continued acceptability of male circumcision in the Western world is the product of misandry and said something stupid like “No American woman can understand what it’s like to go through life carrying a visible reminder of an act of violence against her on her own body.”

Feminists typically fail to realize this because male victims are so invisible to most of them. It simply doesn’t occur to them that saying “Men are…” logically entails “Men who’ve been raped/abused/battered/ etc. are…” So they make false and often wildly offensive remarks about such men and then become indignant when someone mentions the people they’ve been casually stepping on without noticing.

15 year old girl and a 17 year old girl actually called out “sexistculture” for being sexist. Sad thing is they will probably be ignored because they don’t have the required education (women’s studies).

An important, interesting but terrible troublesome feature of gender discussions is how certain people, how men and women can look at the same thing sometimes and see completely different things. You can’t engage this rationally.

i.e. Women say “Women are the vast majority of rape victims, period.” and I think the emotional truth behind that is “I’m not being heard (by men) how big a feature of my life this is!!!!” Perhaps she was raped too, and I don’t think you do often, or ever, completely heal from that. So that has a huge truth to her.

But I, male survivors, completely hear, “You don’t matter, you don’t even exist.” which hurts beyond words and for those of us who aren’t silenced, we struggle to get them to realize an untold number of men are raped and we hurt terribly and our relative silence and invisibility doesn’t mean we don’t exist.

It’s an emotional argument, not a rational argument about some kind of reality. There’s a profound lack of compassion for both men and women. It’s sad than so much the victims are fighting each other and not the systems that victimize us. Two starving people can’t really offer each other the sustenance to heal and the rhetoric just prevents productive healing and change.

The trauma of each of us limits our abilities. We need to heal first, but it’s difficult to do.

In my comments to Chris Kilmartin’s GMP post about how Penn State should be finally getting colleges to deal with campus rape, I tried to point out the “What about the wimmins?” aspect of his post. I remember finally getting a couple women to realize my point. They got it!

I felt we weren’t remotely “done” with male victimization and he was turning the conversation to something that didn’t include that. (Mostly ADULT victimization of females, especially in practice).

Seems the women on GMP are much more “reachable” on male victimization than the men, who censor comments and deny it absolutely.

I have an observation/theory:
If we try to get into the head of a female rape victim – perhaps one who has had it really bad – not only was she victim blamed afterwards, but also wasn’t believed by the police and ended up with PTSD from the act – we could see her asking herself “Why did this happen to me? What kind of world do we live in where this could happen?”

It’s not hard to imagine her looking for support – and getting it within Feminism. Feminism replies “You were raped because of rape culture.”

Suddenly her questions have answers that are wrapped up in a neat little package. Her rapist, long ago escaped, is not something she can fight – an ideology IS something she can fight with her fellow female rape victims. It’s part of her healing process. “Rape culture” becomes a surrogate for her rapist – something that she kick and punch and fight and feel like she’s making progress and justice is being done.

The problem is that male rape victims don’t fit into rape culture. It breaks the story, the very existence of male victims and female perpetrators cuts the strings that tie together the neat little package of “rape culture.”

So every time you point out that male victims exist, you’re saying that their punches and kicks towards their surrogate rapist (rape culture) are only hitting air. You’re taking away their only form of vengeance and putting them back into that box of powerlessness where they live in a world with no explanation why bad things happen.

“I have an observation/theory:
If we try to get into the head of a female rape victim – perhaps one who has had it really bad – not only was she victim blamed afterwards, but also wasn’t believed by the police and ended up with PTSD from the act – we could see her asking herself “Why did this happen to me? What kind of world do we live in where this could happen?””.

That is very possible – which is why it is imperative that Abuse and Rape be made gender neutral.

I have come across cases where women who have been subject to sexual abuse/rape have developed PTSD – and bad management and misinformation around gender issues has made the PTSD worse.

Denial of abuse or of rape can be equally devastating to either gender. Delayed diagnosis and management of PTSD and also failure to recognize future risk of PTSD from additional Trauma is a big issue.

Implanting the idea of Rape Culture for a person with PTSD or with A Heightened risk of developing PTSD it is dangerous. Many survivors will not develop PTSD, but they are at a markedly heightened risk of developing complex PTSD in the future should they have to deal with another event, such as a car crash, which places them in a position of (re)experiencing Trauma.

There are far too many happy amateurs out there on the net who need a great deal of eduction – and until then they need to come with a Very Large Health Warning.

I have even seen some attempting to argue that PTSD in women is different to men – but lucking they were trounced and stopped early on.

It’s one of the arguments around making counseling gender neutral and tightly controlled to prevent abuse of the survivor – whether that abuse is unwitting and from good intentions and personal political bias.

“Seems the women on GMP are much more “reachable” on male victimization than the men, who censor comments and deny it absolutely.”

This is the pattern in general. The fiorst ones to get male rape victim victimization are always women. James experienced this with hie post a few years ago at Pajama Media. It was female rape victims who took up for him and asshole men who slammed him for saying anything at all.

That is very possible – which is why it is imperative that Abuse and Rape be made gender neutral(Mediahound)

Not only that, maybe we shouldnt be making certain types of violence more special than others. Afterall, do we really believe that rape is more damaging than, lets say, having the shit beat out of you by 3 people. Or having your skull crushed by a steel bar. Honestly, physical violence is just a form of oppression that is expressed in multiple fashions. I get it that people want to be heard and feel that no one else can understand their type of pain, but really.

Dear Titfortat – there is the issue raised by many that Rape is not violence – it’s a direct and unique manifestation of the patriarchy solely used against women. Some gave way when it was GAY men – because as an oppressed minority and Allie, it was a good political move, and also allowed so many to get interior design tips. P^)

Violence with penetration is a big issue. Some have argued that the penis is a weapon – and yet I have heard that none penile penetration has to also be classified as rape. So a finger, tongue, toe, nose and even an ear has to be considered as a dangerous weapon.

As for inanimate objects – inserting them can also be classified as rape. Knives, bullets, baseball bats and many other objects can be used. I have even been told that any object making unwanted contact with the genitals or anus means rape. It reminds me of a recent story where a duck hunter got shot in the butt. His dog stood on a gun and it shot him in the Butt – so he was dog raped according to some.

I have also heard all the arguments around Rape as a from of genocide – ie, rape is not just a physical assault, it is a weapon of war and attempt to remove the unique elements of social groups by removing what men can bring – that is sperm – by the forced use of a woman’s body.

I have argued that if rape is to be seen as unique as a penetrative injury it is more like Torture than anything else, and should be almost a unique category of crime.

Torture is best defined as “the act of inflicting excruciating pain or psychological distress or damage, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty. ”

I have come across many who have seen this as a valid point – and then they have sought ways to immediately create distinctions which are gender based. I have noted that the word “More” and Specific Gender Stereotypes are used to create these distinctions. I have even been told that since Lexicographers are more likely to be male than female, any definition will have to be treated as suspect. I have yet to see any statistical proof as to gender variance in lexicographers.

For some the assault is never the central issue – the universe and all that are in her simply have to be gender defined so that discrimination can take place – whilst Equality and all her factors are controlled.

In the mean time – until the Lexicographers can come up with a definition of gender neutral that some can accept – the rest of us will just have to soldier on.

The weird thing is, Rape is the only subject in which this is deemed “okay.” Men are the majority of suicides, yet whenever somebody seems to do any sort of coverage the “face of suicide” that they seem to focus on is a white teenage girl.

Men are the majority victims of violence, yet we have “violence against women” as a buzzword

Men are the majority of homesless, yet most of the funding is for women’s assistance.